The United States is exerting pressure on Iran to implement Israeli policy, according to a former Pentagon official.
“US policy toward Iran is really being looked at through an Israeli prism,” former Pentagon security analyst Michael Maloof told Press TV in a phone interview on Tuesday.
He said the foreign policy of the United State of American was being led by President Donald Trump’s neoconservative team of Israel-lovers.
The US foreign policy team comprised of US National Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who clearly want an American-Israeli military conflict with Iran, are running the policies, according to Maloof.
Trump’s neoconservative foreign policy team seeks Tel Aviv’s approval on any policy linked to Iran. “Anything that has to do with Iran has to be sanctioned by Israel for some reason,” Maloof insisted, adding that was where the neoconservatives really flourished.
“They regard Iran as the number one enemy of Israel, and as the consequence, any US foreign policy toward Iran necessarily goes through Tel Aviv,” he said.
Instead of pursuing Americans’ interests, the neoconservatives are making effort to implement Israeli policy.
“Israeli Prime Minister,Benjamin Netanyahu would like the United States to apply militarily the expansion and execution of basically Israeli policy for Iran.” he noted, adding, “This complicates the things incredibly.”
In a victory for Tehran against Washington, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered the United States to halt the unilateral sanctions it recently re-imposed on “humanitarian” supplies to Iran.
The Hague-based court, which is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, announced its ruling on Wednesday regarding the July lawsuit brought by Tehran against Washington’s decision to re-impose unilateral sanctions following the US exit from the the 2015 nuclear deal.
Iran’s lawsuit argued that the sanctions violate the terms of the 1955 Treaty of Amity between Iran and the US. It also called on the court to order Washington to immediately suspend the measures.
On Wednesday, the UN’s top tribunal – known as the World Court — unanimously ruled that the US must ensure that the re-imposed sanctions do not impact humanitarian aid or civil aviation safety.
According to the verdict, which was read out by Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, Washington “shall remove by means of its choosing any impediments arising from the measures announced on May 8 to the free exportation to Iran of medicines and medical devices, food and agricultural commodities” as well as airplane parts.
The court further said that sanctions on goods “required for humanitarian needs… may have a serious detrimental impact on the health and lives of individuals on the territory of Iran.”
US sanctions on aircraft spare parts also had the “potential to endanger civil aviation safety in Iran and the lives of its users,” it added.
The decisions of the ICJ – which rules on disputes between UN member states – are legally binding and cannot be appealed.
In a post on his Twitter account on July 16, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the complaint challenged the US “unlawful re-imposition of unilateral sanctions.”
“Iran is committed to the rule of law in the face of US contempt for diplomacy & legal obligations. It’s imperative to counter its habit of violating int’l law,” he tweeted.
In May, Trump pulled his country out of the 2015 nuclear agreement, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), despite objections from the other signatories to the accord.
In August, he re-imposed the first round of sanctions on Iran. The second phase of US bans will come into effect next month.
Defeat for ‘sanctions-addicted’ US
Meanwhile, Tehran has welcomed the ruling by the 15-member panel of justices, saying it once again indicted Iran’s “righteous” position against the hostile US policies.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif described the verdict as yet another defeat for the “sanctions-addicted” US government.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry also issued a statement, saying the decision “proved once again that the Islamic Republic of Iran is right, and that US sanctions against people and citizens of our country are illegitimate and cruel.”
It also showed that “the US government is growing more isolated day by day due to its wrong and extremist policies and as a result of its own excessive demands from other countries,” the statement added.
Tehran further called on Washington to abandon its unpleasant addiction to imposing cruel and illegal sanctions against other people and act as a responsible member of the international community.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Washington is canceling a 1955 treaty with Tehran after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered the United States to halt the unilateral sanctions it recently re-imposed on “humanitarian” supplies to Iran.
“I’m announcing that the United States is terminating the 1955 Treaty of Amity with Iran, this is a decision that is 39 years overdue,” Pompeo told reporters Wednesday at the State Department.
“In July, Iran brought a meritless case in the International Court of Justice alleging violations of the Treaty of Amity,” Pompeo said.
“We’re disappointed that the court failed to recognize that it has no jurisdiction to issue any order relating to these sanctions measures with the United States, which is doing its work on Iran to protect its own essential security interests,” he added.
“Iran has attempted to interfere with the sovereign rights of the United States to take lawful actions as necessary to protect our national security and Iran is abusing the ICJ for political and propaganda purposes,” the top American diplomat said.
He claimed the United States would work to ensure it is providing humanitarian assistance to the Iranian people.
The Hague-based court, which is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, announced its ruling on Wednesday regarding the July lawsuit brought by Tehran against Washington’s decision to re-impose unilateral sanctions following the US exit from the 2015 nuclear deal.
The decisions of the ICJ – which rules on disputes between UN member states – are legally binding and cannot be appealed.
Iran’s lawsuit argued that the sanctions violate the terms of the 1955 Treaty of Amity between Iran and the US. It also called on the court to order Washington to immediately suspend the measures.
The treaty established economic relations and consular rights and was signed during the terms of former US President Dwight Eisenhower and former Iranian Prime Minister Hossein Ala.
In May, US President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the 2015 nuclear agreement, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), despite objections from the other signatories to the accord.
In August, he re-imposed the first round of sanctions on Iran. The second phase of US bans will come into effect next month.
In a post on his Twitter account on July 16, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the ICJ complaint challenged the US “unlawful re-imposition of unilateral sanctions.”
The reconciliation process initiated by the Russians in Syria has saved countless lives of soldiers, civilians and even jihadists. It also preserved SAA fighting strength, brought a lot of Syrian territory back under the control of Damascus. It brought former jihadists back into the fight on the side of the SAA. This process may appear to be tedious and without the glorious satisfaction of annihilating jihadis in a costly series of rapid offensives, but I firmly believe the reconciliation process is the right way for Syria. This strategy is now being brought to bear at Tanf.
The first evidence of this was the mid-September agreement for the removal of the US trained and backed al-Qaryatayn Martyrs Brigade and 5,000 civilians from the Rukban refugee camp to the Euphrates Shield-held area in northern Aleppo. This was the work of the Russian Reconciliation Center. More recently, tribal leaders from Damascus have met tribal leaders at the refugee camp to discuss their situation. A list of refugees wanting to engage in the reconciliation process is being prepared. Many of those not reconciling with Damascus will be shipped north to join the al-Qaryatayn Martyrs Brigade and their families. The camp evacuations are already underway. Next week the Russians will escort a UN aid convoy into the Rukban Refugee Camp.
Although the US has apparently acquiesced to the Russian plan to depopulate the Rukban Refugee Camp, I believe Russia has cleverly outmaneuvered the US. The SAA is steadily destroying the remaining jihadis on the al-Safa plateau. I believe the US forces at Tanf will soon be left alone without jihadis to control, or even any remaining jihadis to fight. The “fighting ISIS” rationale will disappear and the real reason for remaining at Tanf will become clear. At Israel’s behest, we are blocking the Teheran-Baghdad-Damascus highway.
The US pushed hard to split South Sudan from its northern neighbor. But instead of ending violence, the move led to a civil war, which caused nearly 400,000 deaths, according to a new study.
South Sudan is the world’s youngest internationally recognized nation, which got its independence from Sudan in 2011 after decades of bloodshed and two major civil wars. The bid for independence was pushed hard by the US under several administrations. But the euphoria from the birth of a new nation didn’t last long.
In late 2013, President Salva Kiir Mayardit – best known in the US for receiving a Stetson hat as a gift from George W Bush and making it a permanent part of his image – accused his former deputy Riek Machar and other opponents of attempting a coup. Violence broke out in the capital and spread all over the country. After four years and several failed attempts at a peace deal, South Sudan remains just as divided as the unified Sudan was before 2011.
The death toll from the civil war is hard to count. The UN tally in 2016 stated it at about 50,000. A new study by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, which was partially funded by the US State Department, estimated that the conflict resulted in 382,000 deaths, roughly half directly from violence and the rest from causes like malnutrition and diseases, which were exacerbated by the ongoing conflict. Some 2 million were displaced while about 2.5 million fled to neighboring nations, the study said.
RT’s Caleb Maupin reports how the US-backed nation-building project in South Sudan turned out to be yet another failure.
The nuclear war doomsday clock maintained on the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists website has advanced to two minutes before midnight, the closest point to possible atomic apocalypse since the end of the Cold War. In 1995 the clock was at fourteen minutes to midnight, but the opportunity to set it back even further was lost as the United States and its European allies took advantage of a weakened Russia to advance NATO into Eastern Europe, setting the stage for a new cold war, which is now underway.
It is difficult to imagine how the United States might avoid a new war in the Middle East given the recent statements that have come out of Washington, and, given that the Russians are also active in the region, a rapid and massive escalation of something that starts out as a minor incident should not be ruled out.
President Donald Trump set the tone when he harangued the United Nations last Tuesday, warning that the United States would go it alone in defense of its perceived interests, with no regard for international bodies that exist to limit armed conflict and punish those who commit war crimes.
Trump’s 35-minute speech featured an anticipated long section targeting Iran. He commented that:
“Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction. They do not respect their neighbors or borders, or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Iran’s leaders plunder the nation’s resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond… We cannot allow the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet’s most dangerous weapons. We cannot allow a regime that chants ‘Death to America,’ and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth.”
There are a number of things exaggerated or incorrect in Trump’s description of Iran as well as in the conclusions he draws. The Middle East and other adjacent Muslim countries are in chaos because the United States has destabilized the region starting with the empowering of the Islamist Mujadeddin in the war against Soviet Afghanistan in the 1980s. It then invaded Afghanistan in 2001 followed by Iraq in 2003, enabling the rise of ISIS and giving local al-Qaeda affiliates a new lease on life, before turning on Damascus with the Syria Accountability Act later in the same year and then destroying the Libyan government under Barack Obama. These were, not coincidentally, policies promoted by Israel that received, as a result, bipartisan support in Congress.
The emotional description of disrespecting “neighbors, borders and sovereign rights” fits the U.S. and Israel to a “T” rather than Iran. The U.S. has soldiers stationed illegally in Syria while Israel bombs the country on an almost daily basis, so who is doing the disrespecting? Washington and Tel Aviv are also the principal supporters of terrorists in the Middle East, not Iran, – arming them, training them, hospitalizing them when they are injured, and making sure that they continue their work in attacking Syria’s legitimate government.
And as for “most dangerous weapons,” Iran doesn’t have any and is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Israel and the U.S. have not signed. Nor would Iran have any such weapons in the future but for the fact that Trump has backed out of the agreement to monitor and inspect Iranian nuclear research and development, which will, if anything, motivate Tehran to develop weapons to protect itself.
Trump also elaborated on the following day regarding Iran’s alleged but demonstrably non-existent nuclear program when he indicated to the Security Council that Washington would go after countries that violate the rules on nuclear proliferation. He clearly meant Iran but the comment was ironic in the extreme, as Israel is the world’s leading nuclear rogue nation with an arsenal of two hundred nuclear devices, having stolen the uranium and key elements of the technology from the United States in the 1960s.
Trump’s new appraisal of the state of the Middle East is somewhat a turnaround. Five months ago he said that he wanted to “get out” of Syria and bring the soldiers home. But in early September, the secretary of state’s special representative for Syria engagement, James Jeffrey, indicated that the U.S. would stay to counter Iranian activities.
And John Bolton has also recently had a lot to say about Iran, Syria and Russia. Last Monday he confirmed that Washington intends to keep a military presence in Syria until Iran withdraws all its forces from the country. “We’re not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders, and that includes Iranian proxies and militias.” On the following day, speaking at a Sheldon Adelson funded United Against Nuclear Iran Summit, he said the “murderous regime” of “mullahs in Tehran” would face serious consequences if they persist in their willingness to “lie, cheat and deceive. If you cross us, our allies, or our partners; if you harm our citizens there will indeed be hell to pay. Let my message today be clear: We are watching, and we will come after you.”
John Bolton also warned the Russians about their decision to upgrade the air defenses in Syria in the wake of the recent Israeli bombing raid that led to the shooting down of a Russian intelligence plane. He said absurdly and inaccurately “The Israelis have a legitimate right to self-defense against this Iranian aggressive behavior, and what we’re all trying to do is reduce tensions, reduce the possibility of major new hostilities. That’s why the president has spoken to this issue and why we would regard introducing the S-300 as a major mistake.”
Bolton then elaborated that “We think introducing the S-300s to the Syrian government would be a significant escalation by the Russians and something that we hope, if these press reports are accurate, they would reconsider.” And regarding who was responsible for the deaths of the Russian airmen, Bolton also has a suitable explanation “There shouldn’t be any misunderstanding here… The party responsible for the attacks in Syria and Lebanon and really the party responsible for the shooting down of the Russian plane is Iran.”
Bolton’s desire to exonerate Israel and always blame Iran is inevitably on display. He is curiously objecting to the placement of missiles that are defensive in nature, presumably because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked him to do so. The only way one can be threatened by the S-300 is if you are attacking Syria, but that might be a fine point that Bolton fails to grasp as he was a draft dodger during the Vietnam War and has since that time not placed himself personally at risk in support of any of the wars he has been promoting.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also spoke on Monday, at the Pentagon. His spin on Iran was slightly different but his message was the same. “As part of this overarching problem, we have to address Iran. Everywhere you go in the Middle East where there’s instability you will find Iran. So in terms of getting to the end state of the Geneva [negotiations] process, Iran, too, has a role to play, which is to stop fomenting trouble.”
To complete the onslaught, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking at the same United Against Nuclear Iran Summit as Bolton, accused European nations seeking to avoid U.S. sanctions over the purchase of Iranian oil as “solidifying Iran’s ranking as the number-one state sponsor of terrorism. I imagine the corrupt ayatollahs and IGRC [Revolutionary Guards] were laughing this morning.”
Even the U.S. Congress has figured out that something is afoot. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators, who were carefully briefed on what to think by the Israeli government, warned after a trip to the Middle East that war between the United States and Iranian proxies is “imminent.”
Iran is fun to kick around but China has also been on the receiving end of late. Last Wednesday the U.N. Security Council meeting was presided over by Donald Trump, who warned that Beijing is “meddling” in U.S. elections against him personally. It is a bizarre claim, particularly as the only country up until now demonstrated as having actually interfered in American politics in any serious way is Israel. The accusation comes on top of Washington’s latest foray into the world of sanctions, directed against the Chinese government-run Equipment Development Department of the Chinese Central Military Commission and its director Li Shangfu for “engaging in significant transactions” with a Russian weapons manufacturer that is on a list of U.S. sanctioned companies.
The Chinese sanctions are serious business as they forbid conducting any transactions that go through the U.S. financial system. It is the most powerful weapon Washington has at its disposal. As most international transactions are conducted in dollars and pass through American banks that means that it will be impossible for the Chinese government to make weapons purchases from many foreign sources. If foreign banks attempt to collaborate with China to evade the restrictions, they too will be sanctioned.
So if you’re paying attention to Trump, Bolton, Mattis, Pompeo and Haley you are probably digging a new bomb shelter right now. We have told Iran that it cannot send its soldiers and “proxies” outside its own borders while Syria cannot have advanced missiles to defend its airspace, which Russia is “on notice” for providing. China also cannot buy weapons from Russia while Venezuela is also being threatened because it has what is generally believed to be a terrible government. Meanwhile, America is in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to stay while nearly all agree a war with Iran is coming soon. Everyone is the enemy and everyone hates the United States, mostly for good reasons. If this is Making America Great Again, I think I would settle for just making America “good” so we could possibly have that doomsday clock go back a couple of minutes.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org .
The United States is creating the basis for the regional conflagration in the Middle East by fortifying its circle around Iran, American writer and academic James Petras says.
The US State Department has endorsed the proposed sale of more than 800 tactical missiles to Bahrain amid the Al Khalifah regime’s heavy-handed crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners and political dissidents in the tiny Persian Gulf country.
The approval includes Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) Unitary Rocket Pods and Army Tactical Missiles System (ATACMS) Unitary missiles for an estimated cost of $300 million, the Arabic-language al-Khaleej al-Jadeed news website reported on Saturday.
“Well, it’s part of the US setting up the aggressive policy; mainly it is directed against the government in Iran. And it’s largely responsible for encouraging this aggression with the addition of its support of Israel and Saudi Arabia,” Professor Petras said.
“It’s creating the basis for the regional conflagration. I don’t think anyone is aware of any danger to the small (Persian) Gulf state. They’re mainly there to serve the US, and to enrich the oligarchies that run those countries,” he added.
“They have no defensive function. They have no positive role to play. And they are forever condemned for their repression of their dissident populations,” the analyst said.
“So I think this is an act by the Trump administration to fortify its circle around Iran. It’s likely to force Iran to increase its defenses and its alliances in the region,” he added.
“I don’t think it has any positive function for the US to continue meddling the Middle East and causing new wars, new terrorists, and new instability in the region,” the academic concluded.
Several CounterPunchers, I included, have posted on the “antisemitism” campaign directed at the Labour party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn’s most virulent accusers have been from his own party, abetted by the tabloid media, and the supposedly liberal Guardian (though it has long been a Blairite holdout, and its chief op-ed writer on Israel is the ardent Zionist Jonathan Freedland).
This anti-Corbyn faction in the Labour party is made up of two overlapping groups: increasingly marginalized supporters of the former leader Tony Blair whose neoliberal “Thatcher lite” agenda has been superseded by Corbyn’s push to reclaim and revitalize Labour’s socialist origins; and a Zionist element, which turns out to be extremely well-funded, having well-documented strong links with pro-Zionist advocacy groups.
In particular, I’ve been researching organizational links and funding sources from key donors, along with associated parliamentary patterns on two significant issues– the illegal invasion of Iraq and Saudi adventurism in the Middle East– congruent with Israel’s declared interests.
Jeremy Corbyn, by contrast, has been an unyielding supporter of the rights of the Palestinian people.
The results, presented below, have (to say the least) been more than a mild surprise.
Corrections, and updates, from readers will be most welcome, as I intend to keep this list up-to-date and free from error.
LABOUR POLITICIANS WHO ARE/WERE OFFICERS OF LABOUR FRIENDS OF ISRAEL (LFI):
Rt. Hon Joan Ryan MP, LFI Chair (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. According to the Evening Standard of October 26, 2007, in 2005-06 she made the second highest expenses claim of any MP, while in 2006-07 she managed to achieve first place, with a total of £173,691/$227,800. In May 2009 Ryan claimed more than £4,500/$5,900 under the additional costs allowance for work on a house she had designated as her second home. In February 2010 she was asked to repay £5,121/$6,700 mortgage interest, which she had wrongfully claimed. Corbyn by contrast has been the lowest claimer of expenses since these were monitored—in 2010 he claimed just £8.70/$11.40 for an ink cartridge. His expenses rose significantly when he became leader of the main opposition party, and his claim between 1 June 2017-31 May 2018 amounted to £20,397.74/$26,700, still chicken’s feed compared to Ryan’s excesses).
Dame Louise Ellman MP, LFI Vice-Chair, former chair of Jewish Labour Movement (JLM)§. (Voted for the war on Iraq, and voted against a parliamentary inquiry into the war. In 2011, The Jerusalem Post described Berger as “an active supporter of Israel who has visited the country over 20 times”.)
Sharon Hodgson MP, LFI Vice-Chair
Rupa Huq MP,LFI Vice-Chair (Rejects BDS in a statement to We Believe in Israel)
Rt. Hon Pat McFadden MP, LFI Vice-Chair (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Lord Jonathan Mendelsohn, former LFI Chair (Tony Blair’s unofficial liaison with business. In the 1998 “Lobbygate” scandal he was caught on tape boasting to an undercover reporter (Greg Palast) posing as a businessman, about how he could sell access to government ministers and create tax breaks for their clients.
Rachel Reeves MP, LFI Vice-Chair (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. Supports curbs on immigration, and attracted controversy by hiring unpaid interns. In 2017, she received a “donation in kind” of £12,500/$16,400 from Sir David Garrard#)
Rt. Hon John Spellar MP, serves on the Political Council of the neoconservative and Islamophobic think-tank Henry Jackson Society (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale, House of Lords LFI Chair (former MI6 (UK spying outfit) operative, specializing in Scandinavian affairs)
Jonathan Reynolds MP, LFI Vice-Chair
John Woodcock MP (resigned from the Labour party in July 2018, now sitting as an Independent MP), LFI Vice-Chair (Favoured UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Former Labour MP (1997-2010) Andrew Dinsmore, Member of the London Assembly for Barnet and Camden 2012- (Opposed the academic boycott of Israel in parliament, saying the boycott was “misguided” and “undermined academic freedoms” and contributed “absolutely nothing to trying to bring peace to the Middle East”)
Former Labour MP (2010-2017) Michael Dugher, LFI vice-chair. (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. Has criticized the BDS campaign, saying in a tweet: “Boycotting Israeli institutions is ignorant, wrong and counterproductive to peace. We should be building bridges and furthering dialogue”. A keynote speaker at the ‘We Believe in Israel’ conference, he said he was “proud to be a Zionist”, and that “Each time I visit Israel, my admiration for that great country grows”. In parliament he termed a backbench motion to recognize a Palestinian state as “unnecessary and divisive”)
Former Labour MP (1997-2010) Jane Kennedy, Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner 2012- (LFI Chair 1997–98, 2000–-07)
Former Labour MP (1997-2005) Stephen Twigg, ex-LFI chair (Voted for the war on Iraq)
LABOUR POLITICIANS WHO ARE LFI SUPPORTERS:
Ian Austin MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. On 1 June 2012, he apologised after claiming that a Palestinian human rights group had denied the existence of the Holocaust. Members of Friend of Al-Aqsa made reference to the fact that Austin had written about the group in an article written on the Labour Uncut website in 2011. In 2017, he received a “donation in kind” of £10,000/$12,400 from Sir David Garrard#, and £5,000/$6,200 from Sir Trevor Chinn*)
Luciana Berger MP, Director of LFI (2007-2010),also parliamentary chair of JLM (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. Rejects BDS in a statement to We Believe in Israel)
Rt. Hon Nick Brown MP (Voted for the war on Iraq. Rejects BDS in a statement to We Believe in Israel)
Rt. Hon Liam Byrne MP
Vernon Coaker MP (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Rosie Cooper MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen.)
Yvette Cooper MP (Voted for the war on Iraq)
Mary Creagh MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. Supports military action in Syria)
Jon Cruddas MP (Voted for the war on Iraq)
Wayne David MP (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Gloria DePiero MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Angela Eagle MP (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. Supports military action in Syria)
Chris Evans MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Jim Fitzpatrick MP
Rt. Hon Caroline Flint MP(Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
James Frith MP
Mike Gapes MP, former LFI Vice-Chair(Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. Supports military action in Syria)
Barry Gardiner MP, former vice-chair of LFI (Voted for war on Iraq, and supported the Israeli onslaught on Gaza 2008-09)
Preet Gill MP
Mary Glindon MP
Lilian Greenwood MP
Nia Griffith MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Andrew Gwynne MP
Fabian Hamilton MP (Voiced opposition to Ed Miliband (then Labour leader) who criticized Israel’s 2014 operation in Gaza “wrong and unjustifiable”. In parliament he opposed a backbench motion to recognize a Palestinian state. Rejects BDS in a statement to We Believe in Israel)
Rt. Hon David Hanson MP (Voted for the war on Iraq)
Rt. Hon Dame Margaret Hodge MP (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. Stemcor, the steel trading company in which she owns shares and which was founded by her father and is run by her brother, paid tax of just £163,000/$214,000 (0.01%) on revenues of more than £2.1bn/$2.75bn in 2011. Corbyn has pledged to close these tax loopholes)
Rt. Hon George Howarth MP (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Dan Jarvis MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. According to the Register of Members’ Interests, he accepted a donation of £2,500/$3,100 from Sir Trevor Chinn*)
Diana Johnson MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Darren Jones MP
Helen Jones MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Kevan Jones MP (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Mike Kane MP
Barbara Keeley MP
Liz Kendall MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. Abstained on a parliamentary motion recognizing the state of Palestine. According to the Register of Members’ Interests, she accepted a donation of £2,500/$3,100 from Sir Trevor Chinn*)
Peter Kyle MP(Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Rt. Hon David Lammy MP (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Chris Leslie MP (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. Has stated that “Marxism has no place in the modern Labour Party” )
Ivan Lewis MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. Rejects BDS in a statement to We Believe in Israel)
Ian Lucas MP (Also member of the Labour Friends of Palestine. Opposes BDS)
Sandy Martin MP
Chris Matheson MP
Steve McCabe MP (Voted for the war on Iraq)
Catherine McKinnell MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Conor McGinn MP(Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Stephen Morgan MP
Melanie Onn MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Toby Perkins MP (voted for UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Jess Phillips MP
Bridget Phillipson MP
Lucy Powell MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. Introducing legislation in the House of Commons banning private, invite-only groups on Facebook because they “promote hate speech”).
Virendra Sharma MP
Barry Sheerman MP (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Ruth Smeeth MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. Smeeth used to work for a pro-Israel campaign group, BICOM (considereda ‘strictly protected’ source by US Intelligence). The Register of Members’ Interests shows that Smeeth declared a donation of £5,000/$6,200 from Poju Zabludowicz’s company Tamares Real Estates in June last year. Zabludowicz, a billionaire property speculator, used his wealth, inherited from his Israeli arms dealer father, to establish BICOM. Smeeth also declared a donation of £2,500/$3,100 from Sir Trevor Chinn*)
Angela Smith MP (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Jeff Smith MP
Owen Smith MP
Gareth Snell MP
Wes Streeting MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. Vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Antisemitism. Rejects BDS in a statement to We Believe in Israel)
Graham Stringer MP (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Emily Thornberry MP (Shadow secretary of defence)
Anna Turley MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Karl Turner MP
Chuka Umunna MP (Received donation of £25,000/$32,700 from Sir David Garrard#)
Rt. Hon Keith Vaz MP (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Tom Watson MP, Labour Deputy Leader (Voted for the war on Iraq. Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen. Watson was keynote speaker at LFI’s 2016 “annual lunch” and praised LFI for being “fearless in its support for the state of Israel”. Since December 2015, Watson has received £50,000/$65,500 in personal donations from Sir Trevor Chinn*. Watson has also received £15,000/$19,600 from Sir David Garrard#, and £4,500/$5,900 from LFI. There is no Labour politician more welcoming of pro-Zionist largesse than Watson)
Phil Wilson MP (Abstained or not present during 2016 vote to withdraw UK support for Saudi war against Yemen)
Rt. Hon Rosie Winterton MP (Voted for the war on Iraq)
Rt Hon Lord Anderson of Swansea
Former Labour MP (1987-2010) Alun Michael, South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner 2012– .
Lord Beecham DL
Rt Hon Lord David Blunkett, member of Tony Blair’s cabinet. (Voted for the war on Iraq when he was an MP)
Lord Clarke of Hampstead CBE
Rt Hon Lord Clinton-Davis(former director of The Jewish Chronicle and former member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews)
Lord Davies of Coity CBE
Rt Hon Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland (Voted for the war on Iraq when he was an MP)
Rt Hon Lord George Foulkes of Cumnock (Voted for the war on Iraq when he was an MP, and voted against a parliamentary inquiry into the war.)
Lord Harrison
Lord Haskel
Baroness Dr Hayter
Lord Kennedy
Lord Michael Levy (Chief fundraiser for Tony Blair, he was Blair’s special envoy to the Middle East (1998-20017). Described by The Jerusalem Post as “undoubtedly the notional leader of British Jewry”)
Lord Livermore
Rt Hon Lord John Reid of Cardowan (As Blair’s minister of defence sent 3,000 British troops to Helmand province, Afghanistan. Supports curbs on immigration)
Lord David Sainsbury of Turville (Supermarket tycoon, and major donor to the Labour party (£18.5m/$24.3m until 2016). Served as Blair’s minister of science, without salary)
Lord Stone of Blackheath
Lord Turnberg
Rt Hon Lord David Watts
Lord Robert Winston of Hammersmith (Since 2017 founding member and co-chair of the UK-Israel Science Council)
Lord Young of Norwood Green
Ψ The JLM director, Ella Rose, was an Israeli embassy officer before she became JLM director.
# Sir David Garrard: property tycoon, offshore tax-dodger. In 2006 it was revealed Garrard had made a secret “loan” to the Labour Party of £2.3m/$3m (this is in addition to donations of £1.5m/$2m since 2003 under the “New Labour” leaders Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband). He was also nominated for a peerage at that time, but the nomination was withdrawn when news of the suspect “loan” became public. In 2013 Garrard hosted a junket to Israel by 11 Labour MPs, including shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy, shadow defence minister Gemma Doyle, LFI chair Anne McGuire and vice-chair Louise Ellman. He left the Labour party in March 2018, citing Corbyn’s “antisemitism” as his reason.
*Sir Trevor Chinn: former chair of the Kwik-Fit and Lex chain of motor garages. Has funded the Conservative Friends of Israel and LFI; and he sits on the Executive Committee of the Jewish Leadership Council. Chinn also sits on the executive committee of the Zionist advocacy group BICOM (considered a ‘strictly protected’ source by US Intelligence). Chinn has funded several leadership rivals to Jeremy Corbyn. The Independent reports that Chinn has donated an undisclosed amount to Tony Blair, who was of course the main UK sponsor of the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Kenneth Surin teaches at Duke University, North Carolina. He lives in Blacksburg, Virginia.
A terrible beauty was born last night with the sequence of dramatic events taking a curious turn, following the shooting down of the Russian plane on September 17 near the coastline of Latakia, Syria, killing fifteen personnel on board the aircraft.
After a meticulous investigation by the Russian side, Moscow has blamed Israel. It has also constituted a criminal case. Indeed, under international law, a criminal act took place and a crime is per se accountable and punishable. Tel Aviv must be acutely conscious of that.
Meanwhile, Russia has begun initiating moves that ensure that such tragic incidents do not recur. As an initial step, Moscow proposes to equip the Syrian air defence establishment with the formidable S-300 missile defence system. More such measures are expected in the coming days and weeks.
At which point, last night, US National Security Advisor John Bolton came in from the cold and tweeted that the Russian move regarding S-300 is a “significant escalation” and that Moscow should “reconsider”. Washington has decided to make a lateral entry into what so far wore the look of a Russian-Israeli-Syrian triangle. It stands to reason that Bolton has been watching developments with an eagle’s eye all but kept mum until Russia made its first big move.
Last night, the Russian-Israeli-Syrian triangle morphed into a US-Russian-Israeli triangle. That in turn brings up the big question: Wasn’t the latter triangle the real one all along? Put differently, was Israel acting alone at all on September 17 or is it that Tel Aviv pulled strings in Washington for the big daddy to intervene since Moscow turned on the heat?
In either case, a terrible beauty is born, as Bolton’s crisp, cryptic wording underlines. He didn’t elaborate what he meant by “significant escalation” and, equally, he left a challenge vaguely suspended in the air by calling for a Russian rethink on the S-300 decision. Importantly, Bolton’s tweet ignored Moscow’s clarification at the highest level on Monday that the Russian motivation is principally to “avert any potential threat” to the lives of Russian personnel deployed to Syria.
Simply put, what emerges from Bolton’s tweet is that any Russian moves towards the “significant” strengthening of the Syrian capability to deter aggression or closing the Syrian air space in regions where Russian personnel are deployed will not find favor with Washington. This is a curious stance, to say the least. Especially when there are strong and persistent rumors that the US is also feverishly working to establish a “no-fly zone” in northeastern Syria that might possibly cover a big swathe of territory stretching from Manbij in Aleppo province to Deir Ezzor bordering the Euphrates, and that an advanced air defence and radar system has already been established near the Turkish border with northern Syria’s Ayn al-Arab (also known as Kobani), held by Kurdish groups. This is, by the way, despite the fact that the ISIS is not known to possess any capability to stage air attacks.
That is to say, on the one hand, the US is establishing an air defence system to protect its Kurdish allies in Syria from attacks while on the other hand, it is contesting any Russian move to strengthen the deterrent capability of the Syrian government against Israeli air attacks. What is the game plan?
The US strategy in Syria has phenomenally evolved through the past one-year period from the professed agenda of fighting terrorism to shaping the political future of Syria. The US has all but acknowledged its intention to keep an open-ended presence in Syria. President Trump no longer talks about a withdrawal of US troops from Syria. Alongside, Washington has also reopened the regime agenda in Syria.
All in all, it must be understood very clearly that the US not only refuses to accept defeat in the Syrian conflict, which it engineered some 7 years ago, but is determined to be the winner, and will use all power at its disposal to reach that desired goal. This means tha Washington expects Moscow not to stand in the way of the Pentagon’s action plan to degrade the Syrian government forces to a point where they stood in a priori history in mid-2015 before the Russian intervention.
Enter Israel. The US-Israeli congruence in the above project does not need elaboration, because a regime change in Syria and the potential dismemberment of that country could guarantee that Israel’s illegal occupation of the Golan Heights will never be challenged on the ground, leaving the Trump administration a free hand to accord international legitimacy to that occupation as part of any “Syrian settlement”.
Suffice to say, Russia is the proverbial dog in the Syrian manger. Iran’s presence in Syria is more of a nuisance that can be tackled separately by Israel, but so long as Russian aerospace capabilities provide cover for the Syrian government forces, the US and Israel run into headwinds in demolishing them systematically for advancing the regime change project.
The logical conclusion of the US-Israeli project lies in the removal of the Russian bases from Syrian territory. Neither the US nor Israel can countenance a military presence superior to Israel’s in the entire Middle East region. The actual Russian deployment to Syria may not be big, but Israel is very well aware that Russia has vast strategic depth, which it cannot hope to match.
The bottom line is that so long as Russia has a strategic presence in the Middle East, Israel cannot regain its military dominance in the region. And time doesn’t work in Israel’s favour, either. Iran is rising and Turkey remains unfriendly. The sooner things get done, the better for Israel – preferably while Trump remains in office.
Clearly, Bolton has thrown down the gauntlet. The tragic incident of September 17 cannot be viewed in isolation.
Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR, former career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. Devoted much of his 3-decade long career to the Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran desks in the Ministry of External Affairs and in assignments on the territory of the former Soviet Union. After leaving the diplomatic service, took to writing and contribute to The Asia Times, The Hindu and Deccan Herald. Lives in New Delhi.
The minimal U.S. press coverage accorded to last Monday’s shooting down of a Russian intelligence plane off the coast of Syria is, of course, a reflection both of lack of interest and of Israel’s involvement in the incident. If one had read the New York Times or the Washington Post on the morning after the shoot-down or watched the morning network news it would have been easy to miss the story altogether. The corporate media’s desire to sustain established foreign policy narratives while also protecting Israel at all costs is as much a feature of American television news as are the once every five minutes commercials from big pharma urging the public to take medications for diseases that no one has ever heard of.
Israel is, of course, claiming innocence, that it was the Syrians who shot down the Russian aircraft while the Israeli jets were legitimately targeting a Syrian army facility “from which weapons-manufacturing systems were supposed to be transferred to Iran and Hezbollah.” Seeking to undo some of the damage caused, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin to express his condolences. He also sent his air force chief to Russia on Thursday to provide a detailed report on what had occurred from the Israeli perspective.
But that story, however it will be spun, is inevitably only part of the tale. The narrative of what occurred is by now well established. The Russian aircraft was returning to base after a mission over the Mediterranean off the Syrian coast monitoring the activities of a French warship and at least one British RAF plane. As a large and relatively slow propeller driven aircraft on a routine intelligence gathering mission, the Ilyushin 20 had no reason to conceal its presence. It was apparently preparing to land at its airbase at Khmeimim in Syria when the incident took place. It may or may not have had its transponder on, which would signal to the Syrian air defenses that it was a “friendly.”
Syrian air defenses were on high alert because Israel had attacked targets near Damascus on the previous day. On that occasion a Boeing 747 on the ground that Israel claimed was transporting weapons was the target. One should note in passing that Israeli claims about what it is targeting in Syria are never independently verifiable.
The Israelis for their part were using four F-16 fighter bombers to stage a surprise night attack on several sites near Latakia, close to the airbase being used by the Russians. They came in from the Mediterranean Sea and clearly were using the Russian plane to mask their approach as the Ilyushin 20 would have presented a much larger radar profile for the air defenses. The radar systems on the F-16s would also have clearly seen the Russian plane.
The Israelis might have been expecting that the Syrians would not fire at all at the incoming planes knowing that one of them at least was being flown by their Russian allies. If that was the expectation, it proved wrong and it was indeed a Syrian S-200 ground to air missile directed by its guidance system to the larger target that brought down the plane and killed its fourteen crew members. The Israelis completed their bombing run and flew back home. There were also reports that the French frigate offshore fired several missiles during the exchange, but they have not been confirmed while the British plane was also reportedly circling out of range though within the general area.
There was also a back story. The Israelis and Russian military had established a hotline, similar to the one that is used with the U.S. command in Syria, precisely intended to avoid incidents like the Ilyushin shoot-down that might escalate into a more major conflict. Israel reportedly used the line but only one minute before the incident took place, leaving no time for the Russian plane to take evasive action.
The Russian Ministry of Defense was irate. It saw the exploitation of the intelligence plane by the Israelis as a deliberate high-risk initiative. It warned “We consider these provocative actions by Israel as hostile. Fifteen Russian military service members have died because of the irresponsible actions of the Israeli military. This is absolutely contrary to the spirit of the Russian-Israeli partnership. We reserve the right for an adequate response.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin was more conciliatory, saying the incident was a “chain of tragic circumstances.” He contrasted it with the Turkish shoot-down of a Russian warplane in 2015, which was planned and deliberate, noting that Israel had not actually attacked the Ilyushin. Though the Putin comments clearly recognize that his country’s relationship with Israel is delicate to say the least, that does not mean that he will do nothing.
Many Israelis are emigres from Russia and there are close ties between the two countries, but their views on Syria diverge considerably. As much as Putin might like to strike back at Israel in a hard, substantive way, he will likely only upgrade and strengthen the air defenses around Russian troop concentrations and warn that another “surprise” attack will be resisted. Unfortunately, he knows that he is substantially outgunned locally by the U.S., France, Britain and Israel, not to mention Turkey, and a violent response that would escalate the conflict is not in his interest. He has similarly, in cooperation with his Syrian allies, delayed a major attempt to retake terrorist controlled Idlib province, as he works out a formula with Ankara to prevent heavy handed Turkish intervention.
But there is another dimension to the story that the international media has largely chosen to ignore. And that is that Israel is now carrying out almost daily air attacks on Syria, over 200 in the past 18 months, a country with which it is not at war and which has not attacked it or threatened it in any way. It justifies the attacks by claiming that they are directed against Iran or Hezbollah, not at Syria itself. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that any peace settlement in Syria include the complete removal of Iranians, a demand that has also been repeated by the United States, which is also calling for the end to the Bashar al-Assad government and its replacement by something more “democratic.”
Aggressive war directed at a non-threatening country is the ultimate war crime as defined by the Nuremberg Tribunals that followed after the Second World War, yet the United States and its poodles Britain and France have not so much as squeaked when Israel kills civilians and soldiers in its surprise attacks against targets that it alone frequently claims to be linked to the Iranians. Washington would not be in much of a position to cast the first stone anyway, as it is in Syria illegally, bombs targets regularly, to include two major cruise missile strikes, and, on at least one occasion, set a trap that reportedly succeeded in killing a large number of Russian mercenaries fighting on the Syrian government side.
And then there is the other dimension of Israeli interference with its neighbors, the secret wars in which it supports the terrorist groups operating in Syria as well as in Iran. The Netanyahu government has armed the terrorists operating in Syria and even treated them in Israeli hospitals when they get wounded. On one occasion when ISIS accidentally fired into Israeli-held territory on the Golan Heights it subsequently apologized. So, if you ask who is supporting terrorism the answer first and foremost should be Israel, but Israel pays no price for doing so because of the protection afforded by Washington, which, by the way, is also protecting terrorists.
There is, of course, an alternative explanation for the Israeli action. Netanyahu might have considered it all a win-win either way, with the Russian plane masking and enabling the Israeli attack without consequence for Israel or, perversely, producing an incident inviting retaliation from Moscow, which would likely lead to a shooting war with the United States after it inevitably steps in to support Israel’s government. In either case, the chaos in Syria that Israel desires would continue and even worsen but there would also be the potential danger of a possible expansion of the war as a consequence, making it regional or even broader.
It’s the same old story. Israel does risky things like attacking its neighbors because it knows it will pay no price due to Washington’s support. The downing of the Russian plane through Israeli contrivance created a situation that could easily have escalated into a war involving Moscow and Washington. What Israel is really thinking when it seeks to create anarchy all around its borders is anyone’s guess, but it is, to be sure, in no one’s interest to allow the process to continue. It is past time for Donald Trump to fulfill his campaign promise to pull the plug on American engagement in Syria and terminate the seemingly endless cycle of wars in the Middle East.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Swedish truckmaker Volvo has stopped assembling trucks in Iran because of Washington’s sanctions, spokesman for the company, Fredrik Ivarsson, told Reuters.
According to him, the group could no longer get paid for parts it shipped and had therefore decided not to operate in Iran.
“With all these sanctions and everything that the United States put (in place)… the bank system doesn’t work in Iran. We can’t get paid… So for now we don’t have any business (in Iran),” Ivarsson said.
Volvo was working with Saipa Diesel (part of Iran’s second-largest automaker Saipa) which was assembling the Swedish firm’s heavy-duty trucks from kits shipped to Iran. The company had plans to become Iran’s main export hub for the Gulf region and North Africa markets.
An unnamed commercial department manager at Saipa Diesel told the media that more than 3,500 Volvo trucks had been assembled in the year to May. However, none had been assembled in this financial year, he said. The original deal was for at least 5,000 trucks.
The manager confirmed that sanctions had prompted Volvo Trucks to terminate their partnership agreement.
“They have decided that due to the sanction on Iran, from (May) they couldn’t cooperate with us. We had some renovation planned in Iran for a new plant but they refused to work with us,” he said.
Volvo has joined a list of European companies such as Total, Adidas and Daimler, who have been forced to reconsider their investments in Iran. The firms said they will scale back or abandon all operations in Iran due to Washington’s sanctions.
Swedish truckmaker Scania, which is owned by Volkswagen (VW), said it had canceled all orders that it could not deliver by mid-August due to sanctions. French carmaker PSA Group began to suspend its joint venture activities in Iran in June.
Germany’s Daimler said it was closely monitoring any further developments, while Volkswagen rejected reports that it had decided against doing business in Iran. VW said its position had not changed.
The neoconservative vision of the world is a place where the United States can do what it wants because it is both better morally speaking and also more capable of enforcing desirable standards of behavior. Such a viewpoint just might perhaps be understandable if Washington were actually willing to operate in a disinterested leadership capacity to promote standards that are generally accepted by the international community, somewhat similar to what the United Nations is supposed to do, but it becomes repugnant when there is no sense that the US is actually willing to judge itself by the values that it claims to be upholding. This is why global opinion believes that Washington, not Russia or China, is the greatest threat to world peace and also why the United States ranks near the bottom in opinion polls assessing which countries are viewed favorably.
Every story has to begin somewhere and that is the neocon trick. You take a situation that you have framed from your own perspective and then use it as a starting point for developing additional arguments that favor the action you wanted to take in the first place. In the case of a country like Iran, you claim that the Iranians must be checked because (a) they are destabilizing the region (b) building a Shi’ite land bridge to the Mediterranean (c) supporting terrorism (d) secretly constructing a nuclear weapon and (e) developing ballistic missiles that will enable them to deliver the nuclear weapons. By establishing your premise of Iranian threat as the basis for the discussion, you completely avoid having to demonstrate that Iran is actually doing any of those things, which is a good thing because every single point is either palpably false or can be easily challenged.
The same goes for Syria, where the argument is framed that Syria is becoming an Iranian satrapy and that US troops are in the country to defeat terrorists. Actually, there is a legitimate government in Damascus that is independent of Iran and it is the American soldiers that are present completely illegally in support of some of the terrorists it is supposed to be fighting. But to admit either fact to be true would not be acceptable as it would ruin the discussion from the neocon point of view.
A recent New York Times Bret Stephens op-ed “To Thwart Iran, Save Idlib” on the situation in Syria illustrates just what is wrong with neocon thinking. Stephens is a card-carrying Zionist who has lived in Israel and was between 2002 and 2004 the Editor-in-Chief of the Jerusalem Post, at that time a right-wing English language newspaper. He still supports the invasion of Iraq and predictably has declared the now-dead nuclear pact with Iran to be worse than the 1938 Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler. It is always 1938 in Munich for someone like Stephens.
In other words, Stephens, with his blinders firmly in place, is not a go-to person if you want to know what is actually happening in Syria or Iran. His op-ed asserts that the United States must act forcefully to prevent the Syrian government’s attempt to retake its terrorist infested Idlib Province.
Why? Because Iran and Russia will be empowered otherwise and the US will appear weak. You see, Stephens believes the “top priority in the Middle East is to thwart Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions.” He asks “So why is [the Trump Administration] so reluctant to lift a finger against Tehran’s most audacious gambit in Syria?”
Stephens explains: “By now, the strategic consequences should also be obvious. Iran will have succeeded in consolidating a Shiite crescent stretching from Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. Russia will have succeeded in reasserting itself as a Mideast military victor and diplomatic power broker. Hezbollah, already the dominant political player in Lebanon, will further extend its influence in Syria. As for Assad, he will have shown that the community of civilized nations will, in fact, let you get away with murder.”
What should be done by Washington and its allies? “… The US can destroy everything that remains of the Syrian Air Force and crater the runways… If Assad continues to move, his presidential palaces should be next. After that, Assad himself. By then he will have been fairly warned. The larger goal is to establish that the US has the ability and will to achieve core foreign policy objectives at a relatively reasonable price.”
There is a word in Italian “pazzo.” It means crazy, but actually has a somewhat stronger meaning, more like delusional, completely nuts. Stephens qualifies, particularly when he presumably includes the United States and Israel among the world’s “community of civilized nations.” Both have been bombing and shooting up Syria even though Damascus has neither threatened nor attacked them. And the Shi’ite crescent is a total fabrication, invented by Israel and repeated endlessly by suck-up American politicians and media talking heads like Stephens. Iraq is 60% Shi’ite to be sure, but the rest of its mostly Sunni population is well entrenched and has fought to maintain its autonomy. Syria is 75% Sunni and 9% Christian. Lebanon is 27% Sunni, 6% Druze, and 40% Christian. Do the math Bret!
And don’t you just love the “achieve core foreign policy objectives at a relatively reasonable price” bit? Destroying the country’s air force and airports, blowing up its government buildings, and assassinating its head of state might be reasonable for armchair warriors in Washington, but it looks a lot different on the ground where most would consider it undeclared war of aggression. That’s a war crime.
And to get back to my original point, all the nonsense is designed to support a narrative of death and destruction that starts with the reader having to accept Stephen’s assertion that there is an actual threat out there even when there is none. Nice work Bret Stephens!
A while ago, I received an email from a friend who asked:
How can many, many respected, competitive, independent science folks be so wrong about [global warming] (if your [skeptical] premise is correct). I don’t think it could be a conspiracy, or incompetence. … Has there ever been another case when so many ‘leading’ scientific minds got it so wrong?
The answer to the second part of my friend’s question—“Has there ever been another case where so many ‘leading’ scientific minds got it so wrong?”—is easy. Yes, there are many such cases, both within and outside climate science. In fact, the graveyard of science is littered with the bones of theories that were once thought “certain” (e.g., that the continents can’t “drift,” that Newton’s laws were immutable, and hundreds if not thousands of others).
Science progresses by the overturning of theories once thought “certain.” … continue
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